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Crusade Propaganda: The abuse of Christianity’s holy wars.
National Review ^ | November 2, 2001 | Thomas F. Madden

Posted on 02/25/2002 8:13:51 AM PST by quidnunc

Since September 11 the crusades are news. When President Bush used the term "crusade" as it is commonly used, to denote a grand enterprise with a moral dimension, the media pelted him for insensitivity to Muslims. (Nevermind that the media used the term in precisely the same way before the "gaff.") Attempting to capitalize on this indignation, the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, crowed "President Bush has told the truth that this is a crusade against Islam." Yet clearly the crusades were much on the minds of our enemies long before Bush brought them to their attention. In a 1998 manifesto, cosigned by the leaders of Islamist groups in Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Osama bin Laden declared war against the "Jews and the Crusaders." If you didn't guess, the Americans are the crusaders here. On the day the U.S. strikes on Afghanistan began, in a live-from-a-cave address, bin Laden declared Bush to be "the leader of the infidels" in a worldwide war against Islam. He previously warned that "crusader" Bush would lead the infidel forces into Afghanistan "under the banner of the cross."

So, what do the medieval crusades have to do with all this? After all, doesn't the Muslim world have a right to be upset about the legacy of the crusades? Nothing and no.

The crusades are quite possibly the most misunderstood event in European history. Ask a random American about them and you are likely to see a face wrinkle in disgust, or just the blank stare that is usually evoked by events older than six weeks. After all, weren't the crusaders just a bunch of religious nuts carrying fire and sword to the land of the Prince of Peace? Weren't they cynical imperialists seeking to carve out colonies for themselves in faraway lands with the blessings of the Catholic Church? A couch potato watching the BBC/A&E documentary on the crusades (hosted by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame no less) would learn in roughly four hours of frivolous tsk-tsk-ing that the peaceful Muslim world actually learned to be warlike from the barbaric western crusaders. No wonder, then, that Pope John Paul II was excoriated for his refusal to apologize for the crusades in 1999. No wonder that a year ago Wheaton College in Illinois dropped their Crusader mascot of 70 years. No wonder that hundreds of Americans and Europeans recently marched across Europe and the Middle East begging forgiveness for the crusades from any Muslim or Jew who would listen. No wonder.

Now put this down in your notebook, because it will be on the test: The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact.

-snip-

Thomas F. Madden is the author of A Concise History of the Crusades and coauthor of The Fourth Crusade, is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.

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TOPICS: Editorial; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: crusades; thecrusades; thomasfmadden; thomasmadden
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To: quidnunc
A couch potato watching the BBC/A&E documentary on the crusades (hosted by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame no less) would learn in roughly four hours of frivolous tsk-tsk-ing that the peaceful Muslim world actually learned to be warlike from the barbaric western crusaders.

Well, who would have thunk that writing comedy skits anout killer sheep and dead parrots didn't make one an expert historian?

21 posted on 02/25/2002 9:59:32 AM PST by counterrevolutionary
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To: counterrevolutionary
Actually, they really had good writers who seemed quite knowledgeable about history. The Oliver Cromwell song or Decomposing Composers or the ditty about all the drunken philosophers, and the tune about the galaxy (all of these songs btw committed to memory and trotted out to regale me on long car trips by my seventeen year old) are quite informative, historically accurate and funny. V's wife.
22 posted on 02/25/2002 10:05:23 AM PST by ventana
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To: counterrevolutionary
Yup!! And now,,, a man with 3 buns.. :-\
23 posted on 02/25/2002 10:32:02 AM PST by NormsRevenge
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To: quidnunc; gg188
The islamic conquest of the Middle East was called 'fatah', which is now the name of the Palestinian terrorist organization...

From Lebanese Forces:

5. The rise of Islam (7' century)

1st quarter of the 7th century: A new religion appeared In the Arabian Peninsula: Islam. It united the Arab tribes who launched their famous campaigns "the Fatah" (conquest), seeking to conquer new territories, in the name of God "Allah", and bring the whole mankind to the true faith (Islam).

636 AD: The Muslims defeated the Byzantine army on the Yarmuk river near Jerusalem and overran the imperial provinces of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Byzantine withdrew to Minor Asia, leaving the fate of Christianity, in the eastern side of the Mediterranean up to the Taurus Mountains, in the hands of the Muslim conquerors.

The coastal and suburban cities of Lebanon were seized and the victorious march toward the West and the North went on, shying away from Mount Lebanon, the rugged terrain of the Maronites' homeland where a new and large population gathered, fleeing the conquered cities. Later, the conquerors were swift to bring Muslim tribes to the area to neutralize Christian predominance and monitor potential rebellions.

At a time when the cities and plains of the Christian East fell prey to the Muslim onslaught, the mountains became the repositories of the Christian resistance to Islam. In Lebanon, Armenia, Assyria, the Christians dug their heels in and awaited the revival of Christendom.

6. The First Mardaite State (676-685)

For a decade, this Christian entity managed to preserve its independence until 685 AD when the Byzantine and the Muslims reached an agreement to crack down on the new independent state. When the Maradas or Mardaites (Christian warriors) warlords were fighting the Muslims they refused the orders of emperor Justinian to leave Lebanon. So he summoned them to a meeting in the Biqaa Valley, to the east of Mount Lebanon, and treacherously had them slain. As a result 12,000 Mardaite warriors left Lebanon for Asia Minor, while the others stayed back and merged with the predominantly Maronite population of the country.

7. A Christian Entity in Lebanon - The Second Mardaite State (685-758)

Following the Byzantine betrayal, the Christians were unable to hold their ground and withdrew North from Palestine to Mount Lebanon. Around the same time, the Muslims launched an offensive against the Mardaites living in Mount Arnanus in Northwest Syria, forcing them to abandon their villages and settle in the Muslim plain. At the beginning of the 8th century, Lebanon remained the only independent Christian entity South of the Taurus Mountains and West of the River Tigris and the sole refuge for the Maronite community to preserve its physical, religious, social and economic status. This small Christian entity extended from the Shuf (east of Sidon) to the Akkar (northeast of Tripoli).

8.Islam Reaches Lebanon - The Third Mardaite State (758-1305)

From the middle of the 8th century onwards, the Abbasid Caliphs implemented a plan to quell the Christian resistance by sending Orthodox Sunni Muslim tribes to Lebanon.

Under this military and demographic pressure, the Christian entity shrank further to the North, leaving the whole Gharb and Shuf areas (east and southeast of Beirut) to the newcomers. The Dog River (nahr el-kalb), 8 miles north of Beirut, became the border between the Christian entity and what had now become a Muslim part of Lebanon.

In the 10th century, the "great divide " between Sunni and Shiite Islam took place and led various heterodox sects (Druzes, Alawites) to seek refuge in Lebanon. As a result of this heterodox influx, the Orthodox Sunni character of Muslim Lebanon faded away, and the Southern part of the mountain became a land of predilection for those rejecting the central authority.

Around the same time, Maronites and other Christians who were being persecuted in Northern Syria fled to Lebanon, and the Maronite Patriarchate established its See in the Lebanese mountain, thus underlining the historical image of Lebanon as refuge for the oppressed.

9. The Crusades (1095-1291)

In the 11th century, the Christian entity in Lebanon was under increasing pressure. As soon as the first Crusade reached Syria, the Maronite warriors came down from their mountains and joined the Frankish armies which had already welcomed Greek and Armenian contingents on their way from Constantinople toward Jerusalem.

The fortifications edified by the Crusaders along with the existing monasteries made Lebanon an integral part of the Western Christianity line of defense. The Maronites were renowned for their military value as well as for their archery skills. Cooperation between the Crusaders and the Christians of Lebanon went beyond the military activities to social, economic and cultural relationship.

DEUS LO VOLT!!! (God Wills It)

24 posted on 02/25/2002 10:37:07 AM PST by knighthawk
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To: demidog
for your reading pleasure...
25 posted on 02/25/2002 10:44:44 AM PST by smith288
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To: knighthawk
You can still get the excellent book by Connell on the Crusades, published in 2000, from remainder houses for about $5 in hardback...and you already have its title, Deus Lo Volt.

The numerical value in Hebrew of the expression "new moon"=rash khodesh, is 819. Just as we had crusader states in the Mideast from 1098-1187, Muslims think that we are doomed to have to cut and run 819 years later...just as we arrived there in (1098+819)=1917/8, similarly we will be thrown out by the new Saladin in (1187+819) or 2006/7.

Will they be right? Will Islam win again? Will the world turn back into the Middle Ages again? Keep your battle axes handy, and pikes at hands for heads. Lets roll.

26 posted on 02/25/2002 10:47:22 AM PST by crystalk
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To: ventana
Actually, they really had good writers who seemed quite knowledgeable about history.

Their references to historical figures and incidents have always struck me as so much name-dropping, displaying little or no in-depth knowledge.

Take "Decomposing Composers," or the Philosopher Song; you say that they are historically accurate. Well, Plato was a philosopher, and Beethoven is dead, but apart from that, what are they accurate about?

As for "Oliver Cromwell," it's lyrics indicate nothing more than that one of them could read an encyclopedia article, which, given that most of them went to Cambridge, is not overly impressive.

27 posted on 02/25/2002 10:49:02 AM PST by counterrevolutionary
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To: Redbob
The Crusaders knew the danger to civilization that was Islam;

Indeed, they were 1000 years ahead of their times.

28 posted on 02/25/2002 10:49:18 AM PST by P-Marlowe
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To: Redbob
>The Crusaders knew the danger to civilization that was Islam; we'd be wise to do the same.

Yes, and the Christian Crusaders had/have every bit as much right by inheritance to Jerusalem and the territory as their Jewish cousins. They received the promise at the same time. Today the Crusaders Northern Kingdom offspring are paying the bills for the nation Israel, while their Jewish cousins are actually occupying it.

29 posted on 02/25/2002 10:54:00 AM PST by LostTribe
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To: quidnunc
The crusades were in every way a defensive war.

LOL! That means then by definition, that WWI was defensive and that England was merely taking back from the Ottoman Empire that which it had lost 1300 years previous. WWI was really part of the Crusades!

30 posted on 02/25/2002 10:56:58 AM PST by Demidog
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To: Demidog
What part of "Crusades" baffles you dog?
The religious component maybe?
The historical context perhaps?

This is no longer the 12th century Dorothy...

31 posted on 02/25/2002 11:01:03 AM PST by Publius6961
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To: ventana
While I certainly enjoy much of Monty Python's comedy (please note the handle) they are not exactly experts on History. They were certainly intelligent and well educated however most of what they knew of the Crusades and Inquisition comes from English Reformation agiprop against the Catholics and was mixed their generally irreverent attitude towards all religion. Hardly a good mix for any Christian to take seriously.
32 posted on 02/25/2002 11:53:48 AM PST by Flying Circus
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To: counterrevolutionary
OK, fine, but they were funny! And you can't exactly expect a windy discourse to garner yucks the way a short bit does. However, the scene from The Holy Grail where the King orders his subjects to "be quiet" "I order you to BE Quiet" "Who does he think he is" and then is given a lecture on government being brought about by agreement and consensus and not because a watery tart hands over a scimitar, is an astute and funny bit about government.(didn't he even explain they were members of a narco-syndicate collective, whatever that is). IMHO. V's wife.
33 posted on 02/25/2002 12:52:01 PM PST by ventana
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To: ventana
Actually, I like Python a lot.
34 posted on 02/25/2002 1:04:15 PM PST by counterrevolutionary
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Comment #35 Removed by Moderator

Comment #36 Removed by Moderator

To: counterrevolutionary
Well, who would have thunk that writing comedy skits anout killer sheep and dead parrots didn't make one an expert historian?

Certainly not the people who think that because as an actress you played a flood victim,you should go testify before congress on flood relief....................................Yikes!

37 posted on 02/25/2002 2:39:37 PM PST by tet68
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To: quidnunc
My Spanish ancestors fought their own Crusade in Spain except that they called it the Reconquista.

No moral ambiguity there.

38 posted on 02/25/2002 2:48:23 PM PST by Polybius
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To: knighthawk,quidnunc
Thanks for the flag; GREAT stuff.

Keep on bumpin'. Get the truth out. Deus lo volt!

39 posted on 02/25/2002 7:40:31 PM PST by gg188
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To: ventana; Mr. Thorne
If you're going to quote Belloc on the Muslims, wouldn't it be fair to quote him on the Jews too?

He deemed them a "problem" because they were "incompatible" with Christianity, much like an "infection." The only question, he said, was how we Christians were to disentangle ourselves from them. Is this really the sort of "thinker" you wish to have as your guide?

40 posted on 02/28/2002 6:46:51 AM PST by a history buff
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